They still don't get it

It appears that some senators are no better than education officials after all. All of them did not and continue not to see the folly of insisting on holding classes in the midst of a crippling pandemic. That at the time classes were forced upon the nation's children no cure was available against the coronavirus disease and that the educational system did not have the proper means to educate them did not seem to faze these officials.

All that mattered to them was appearances. They did not want the Philippines to be seen as a country that lagged behind others in the march toward educational progress. Never mind if the wholesale delay was to be for only a year, in exchange for an assurance that the lives of children will be better protected and that the quality of their education is better assured.

Leonor Briones, the secretary of education, totally ignored the fact that if in better times Filipino students could not manage to rise from the cellar in global math, science, and reading comprehension rankings, the more they will get mired in the bottom of the same ranking by forcing them to undergo classes that are a travesty of real, honest-to-goodness proper education.

In the distance learning method Briones forced upon the country's children, so-called modules substitute for real live teachers in imparting lessons. Unfortunately for the hope of tomorrow, the modules were full of errors which, nevertheless, did not make any difference because it was not the kids who went over them and answered them. It was the parents who took care of everything.

The children had nothing to do with their education. Everything was just going through the motions. It was as if there were no classes at all. Given the difficulty of assessing the progress of the children and of coming up with a true measure with which to faithfully see if they learned anything at all, it is now being proposed to just pass them all, to graduate anyone. I wonder whose mom or dad will make summa cum laude.

This alarmed Sherwin Gatchalian and other senators who dreaded the prospect of producing half-baked educational products. They were joined by other senators like Sonny Angara whose alarm involved the huge number of students who dropped out, either for financial or safety reasons. All of these concerns would have been averted, or not become concerns at all, if classes had simply been put off for a year.

There would have been no red faces because the extended holiday would have applied to everybody. Nobody would have been left behind by an army of passers who learned absolutely nothing. There would have been no future problem of an entire new workforce distinguished by nothing more than their unreadiness and incompetence.

There would have been no shame in postponing classes because, in the face of a pernicious pandemic, putting off of all classes would have been a matter of national interest. But the country had not been willing to pay the price of common sense. Somehow this country always seems to end on the side of pretense and appearances. We want to always project an aura of competence even if COVID-19 has shown that no country ever is.